The early plays of David Mamet are never classified as comedies, but the fine Kansas City Repertory Theatre production of ?American Buffalo? poses an obvious question: Why not?
It could be that Mamet himself projects such a humorless public persona in interviews and his personal essays that ?funny? is a word we resist attaching to a man who discusses his plays as intellectual exercises. Although we still encounter flashes of the poetically profane old Mamet (he was certainly present in ?Phil Spector,? the recent HBO film he wrote and directed), he has through the years seemed drawn to the elevated language of by-gone eras in such as plays as ?Boston Marriage,? his adaptation of the Edwardian drama ?The Voysey Inheritance? or his film version of British playwright Terence Rattigan?s ?The Winslow Boy.?
In ?American Buffalo? we encounter ?classic? Mamet. The dialogue in this 1975 play, which established him as a major talent, is raw but precise and the setting is far from anything resembling middle-class respectability.
Set in a ?resale? shop in Chicago, the piece depicts the bumbling efforts of a trio of sub-cultural bottom-feeders to pull off a rare-coins heist ? a crime for which they are woefully unprepared. The crusty shop owner, Don, has enlisted the help of Bobby, a slow-thinking young junkie who may or may not be clean. But when the bombastic Teach, a neighborhood character with no obvious means of supporting himself, learns of the plan, he convinces Don that Bobby is too inexperienced and untrustworthy to pull off the job. Only he, Teach, can grab the coins without breaking a sweat.
As the plan emerges, we realize that Teach is a big talker who doesn't really possess the requisite criminal skills he claims to have. But he plants enough doubt in Don's mind that the older man comes to distrust Bobby. There's a flash of violence as the little scheme comes unraveled and ultimately we're led to believe that talking big and indulging in grandiose fantasies is really what connects these guys. It's a sort of a mutual delusion society.
In the final minutes of the play, it all comes down to one question Teach repeats to Don: ?Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me?? And there you have it. These guys talk tough but are as emotionally vulnerable as little kids.
?American Buffalo? is generally considered a scathing commentary on market capitalism as these would-be thieves make plans in a shop filled to the rafters with the detritus of American consumerism. That view of the play is totally legitimate, but director Jerry Genochio and his splendid cast see the piece as something beyond that: A comedy of manners. The story of these aspiring master criminals is a near-farcical portrait of little men who want to think big.
As written, Teach becomes the dominant character in the piece. He's a guy who throws his emotional weight around but whose efforts to manipulate others usually comes to nothing. Brian Paulette offers a spectacular performance in this iconic role. Costumed in a leather jacket and florid shirt, with slicked-back hair and a drooping mustache, he visually brings to mind Dustin Hoffman's career criminal in ?Straight Time.? His handling of Mamet's staccato dialogue and profane arias is a thing of beauty. Ultimately Paulette allows us to see beyond the bombast to the inner life of a character who thinks and acts like an addict, even if Bobby is the ?real? junkie.
As Don, Robert Elliott strikes just the right balance as a guy who has cast himself as a paternal figure to young Bobby ? which makes his distrust of the kid all the more disturbing when Teach convinces him that Bobby is a turncoat. Teach and Don have something in common ? an ability to consider superficial evidence and come to the wrong conclusion.
Elliott and Paulette deliver operatic performances. Their characters express themselves in high-relief terms, using words like weapons and reacting to events with extreme emotions. Robbie Tann finds a different vocabulary as Bobby and delivers an utterly convincing human-scale performance as a kid who's the walking personification of vulnerability. Genochio has the skill to put these performances together into a coherent whole. One thing the actors share is immaculate timing. They guide us through the deceptively complex narrative with impressive clarity.
Anyone who saw the 1995 film of ?American Buffalo? knows just how deadly and humorless Mamet can be in the wrong hands. Here he's in very good hands. The result is an impressive portrait of humanity at the bottom of the social scale. It?s funny, sad, poignant and a little scary.
Helping Genochio and his actors to achieve something so raw and yet sublime is a superior design team. Patrick Holt (costumes), Jason Lyons (lighting) and Joe Cerqua (sound and music) all make vital contributions. Scenic designer Donald Eastman deserves special notice because his junk shop is so beautifully cluttered and so spatially dynamic that it virtually becomes a character.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/27/4205600/kc-rep-find-the-gritty-humor-in.html
nurse jackie peeps nhl playoffs 2012 masters shroud of turin the borgias the masters
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.